Recently, I was asked to make a TV appearance and share 5 SEO strategies that entrepreneurs can use to double the amount of traffic coming into their website. It seems that more and more business owners are realizing that just having a website is not enough. A good SEO strategy is essential for driving people to a website. Let’s take a look at 5 different SEO strategies that literally have the power to double the amount of people coming into your website.
You Can Make SEO Work for You
SEO
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. This is the art of optimizing a website to rank highly in the search results when people are searching for the goods or services that you provide. You can think of SEO as something that allows Google and the other search engines to know what your website is about and which keywords and keyword phrases it should rank highly for. A keyword phrase is simply the words that people type into Google when they are looking for what you provide.
Primary Keyword Phrases
The two primary mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it comes to keyword selection is the selection of too many keywords, and also putting a primary focus on ultra-competitive keywords. The first is a big mistake, because in order to accomplish anything of significance, a big task must be broken up into smaller steps. Creating a massive keyword list can seem overwhelming and stand in the way of progress.
It is a good idea to begin by brainstorming a big list, but the key is to winnow that big list of keywords into a manageable size. Prioritize your keywords. Software tools or an SEO expert can help you determine which words will be the most profitable or productive.
Initially, you want to begin targeting keyword phrases that are highly relevant to your business and are not ultra-competitive. For example, a business consultant would not want to begin by targeting the keyword “consulting” because it is too competitive to be profitable and won’t provide traffic that is highly relevant. Think about searcher intent. If a person is looking for a consultant in their area, they will likely using a different keyword phrase like “restaurant consultant Dallas”. Notice that the intent behind a search for the word “consulting” isn’t clear but you can easily discern the intent behind the second search.
Once you have a targeted list of the 5 or 10 keyword phrases that you want to initially focus on, you’re ready for the next step.
Keyword Focused Webpages
After you have your list of keyword phrases, the next step is to identify specific pages on your website that will focus on those keywords. A common mistake that I see all the time is that a website won’t have any of the keywords on it. The search engines need you to tell them what your website is about using keywords. You do this by focusing a single page on your website around a keyword phrase. Don’t try to put all your keywords into a single page – it will dilute the focus of the page and may actually harm your website with Google.
You create focus by emphasizing that keyword on the page. Google looks in certain places on a webpage to see if something is being emphasized or focused on. You need to make sure that your keyword phrase is used in the HTML title, page title (using the H1 tag), and text on the page. It is helpful if this page has a picture or video embedded in the page and the keyword phrase can be used in the caption or title for the image or video.
Blogging for SEO
Google prefers websites that are regularly updated to those that are stagnant. Adding a blog is a great way to ensure that your website is updated regularly. You don’t have to go crazy and post something daily. Depending on your business, posting a blog article weekly may be good or in some cases just doing something monthly will be sufficient. This shows Google that the website hasn’t been abandoned and is indeed actively maintained.
When you provide interesting information on your blog, people will link to it from other websites. The search engines count the number of different websites that link to yours and use this as a sort of popularity vote for your website.
Video for SEO
Most entrepreneurs get overwhelmed and scared at the prospect of creating video. It doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. You can buy a lapel microphone for less than $20, plug that into your smart-phone, prop your smart phone on a bookshelf to hold it steady, and then stand in front of it to record a video. The video will be steady and the audio will be great. You don’t need an $800 camera or other fancy equipment, and you definitely don’t need to hire a video production company. Short amateur style “talking-head” videos are great. People watching these videos are able to connect with you and your message.
Google bought YouTube for $1.65 Billion USD. That should give you an indication of the importance that Google places on video. Creating a video of you talking about one aspect of your product or service and then loading that video into YouTube and embedding it on your website can produce results that are almost magical. This is especially true when you use keywords in your video. YouTube is able to create a transcript of the audio in your video and when it sees your keywords in use, it can greatly help your website rank well in Google.
Article Marketing for SEO
Article marketing is really a way of leveraging the content that you’re already creating and making it available on other websites so they will link back to your website. This involves syndicating the articles that you write and publishing them on high quality article directories. These article directories are where people go to find high quality articles that they can use on their own website. When your article is used off of an article directory it contains a small paragraph about you or your business and an attribution link to your website.
This helps you in two different ways. First, Google counts the number of high quality websites that link too yours and this helps your popularity count. Second, some of those other websites get large amounts of traffic and some of those people will come to your website for more information after reading your article.
Make SEO Work for You
SEO does take time to develop. Don’t get discouraged. Remember and follow the 5 steps:
- Use Primary Keyword Phrases
- Create Keyword Focused Webpages
- Use Blogging for SEO
- Create Video for SEO
- Use Article Marketing for SEO
When you put these 5 steps into action, you will see results. When was the last time you created video or blog articles for your website, as described above? Those two things put your website in the best position to rank well in the search engines quickly. Make that your next step on your to do list to improve your SEO.
